NZAF's Gay Men's Health team will today launch its popular “Men Seeking Men” safe sex campaign on nine bus shelters in central Auckland. The ads will promote condom use for men hooking up with other men for relationships and sex on the Internet. It also contains a link to the popular MenSeekingMen.co.nz website, launched earlier this year, which provides safe sex information, an interactive sexual health advice service, and free condoms. “While Auckland may be our country's gay capital, it's sadly also the HIV capital,” says NZAF National Health Promotion Manager, Te Herekiekie Herewini. “90 gay and bisexual men were diagnosed with HIV in 2005, and three-quarters of these new infections were in Auckland.” AIDS Foundation research published in the Social Policy Journal of New Zealand earlier this year has been used to pinpoint the best locations for the nine bus shelter ads. The research, which used a mixture of data from the Census and a national gay men's survey, found that 45% of all gay men sampled lived in Auckland, and identified a ‘gay district' comprising a number of central Auckland suburbs. “This will reinforce the safe sex messages we have been running on dating websites this year,” says Te Herekiekie Herewini. “The bus shelter ads are specifically placed in areas we know gay and bisexual men are more likely to be. It will also help us reach a significant group of gay and bisexual men who don't go to gay venues, where easy access to condoms and safe sex information is provided. The growth of online dating in recent years has been phenomenal.” The bus shelter campaign will run through the Christmas/New Year period and over the summer until March 2007. Ref: NZAF (m)
Credit: GayNZ.com News Staff
First published: Tuesday, 12th December 2006 - 12:00pm